Leila
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By Prayaag Akbar
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Leila does for the barbarity of contemporary Indian nationalism what The Handmaid’s Tale did for the yoke of patriarchy. It is urgent, gripping, topical, disturbing, and announces a talent we’ll be talking about for years to come. – Neel Mukherjee
Soon to be adapted for the screen as a Netflix Original
Every year on Leila’s birthday Shalini kneels by the wall with a little yellow spade and scoops dry earth to make a pit for two candles. One each for herself and for Riz, the husband at her side.
But as Shalini walks from the patch of grass where she held her vigil the man beside her melts away. It is sixteen years since they took her, her daughter’s third birthday party, the last time she saw the three people she loves most dearly: her mother, her husband, her child.
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This novel is moving, thought provoking and disturbingly believable. Many aspects resonate uncomfortably with life today, not only in India but also closer to home. It is not a light read but well worth the effort.
The book is set in a city where people live in closed sectors in the interest of 'purity for all', or in the slums. The sectors are separated by huge walls. Movement between them and behaviour within are brutally controlled. The story is about the late stages of a mother's hunt for her 19 year old daughter, from whom she had been forcibly separated 16 years earlier for breaking the rules.
